Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google Duo, a simple 1-to-1 video calling app

googleblog.blogspot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 379 posts

Re: Google Duo, a simple 1-to-1 video calling app

#51

Post by jalami »

I'm still putting my money on vector.im and matrix.org. Closed source communication apps are not appealing to me, even if they come with an E2E promise.

From a business perspective this makes sense for Google. A big problem with Skype was always the lack of ubiquity. Lot of people had it, but it required another install and explicit configuration. Now that Skype is nearly bundled with W10 and WebRTC has made skype.com trivial, the gap for Google to move in is closing. If this rolls out with Google branded Android, people will use it irrespective of its merits (a la bundled Internet Explorer). Interop on iOS makes it stand out from Facetime. There's always room to change terms later when it becomes a household name.

Also, with all these services adding an E2E sticker on their communications, Google's hand was forced, they're not trend setters here and they shouldn't be applauded for being extremely late to the privacy game.

Re: Google Duo, a simple 1-to-1 video calling app

#52

Post by tintor »

roryisok wrote: post #39
helloworld wrote: post #12

Sounds like Duo has a simple user experience, which is great. But it doesn't solve the eye-contact problem with video calls today. When you look at the person on the screen whom you're talking to, that person sees you looking away, because you're not looking into the camera, which is somewhere on the edge of the screen. So you don't make eye contact with the person you're talking to. And for me, that makes video call…

Can't they just put a camera behind the screen? Been waiting for this for over a decade

Or put 4 cameras on four sides of the screen and merge the video feed into screen center POV.

Re: Google Duo, a simple 1-to-1 video calling app

#53

Post by Animats »

"Announces", yes; "releases", no. The Google Play Store offers only a "pre-register" button. Yet it has 4.9 stars already.

Looking forward to seeing an analysis of the protocol. Does it go through Google servers, or is it really peer to peer? How does the "end to end encryption" work? How are the keys generated and exchanged? Do the servers have the keys? Are you sure?

Re: Google Duo, a simple 1-to-1 video calling app

#54

Post by chetanahuja »

Nullabillity wrote: post #47
sidcool wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, being tied to Google account does seem limiting, after all there are more phone numbers than Google Accounts. I have a gut feeling that one of Allo and Duo will be a success.

But there are far more Google accounts than Allo/Duo users, and an e-mail address is far more memorable than a phone number.

Email addresses are generally not in your phone's addressbook while phone numbers always are. Also, SMS based phone number verification is quick and easy (and completely automatic on Android without any user action required).

Re: Google Duo, a simple 1-to-1 video calling app

#55

Post by ocdtrekkie »

wutbrodo wrote: post #42
karma_vaccum123 wrote: post #20

I know these will be preinstalled on Android, but many friends and family use iOS and I will feel silly asking them to install Duo and Allo. Hangouts is able to mix voice, video and text just fine. Why start requiring separate apps? This is Google at its dumbest. They are squandering the small amount of momentum Hangouts has.

Google's communications strategy has been bafflingly dumb for years and years now. Almost my ENTIRE social network (that was on chat; this was before every part of society was "on the Internet") used to be on Gchat. That's a massive network-effects advantage that they had ages before anyone else did (including Facebook, but Facebook's network did surpass them with the ability to find someone by their face). Almost a…

Also, Google Search and Gmail were REALLY GOOD back when Google made really good products, and they both seem to be treated as sacred there. Neither has received truly radical changes to fit with Google's new and often transient business focuses. Had Google made the mistake of replacing Gmail with Inbox, Gmail would've gone the way of everything else Google's done lately. But it seems like someone rightfully has ensured the two "big ones" stay largely unmolested.

Re: Google Duo, a simple 1-to-1 video calling app

#57

Post by donpark »

delta1 wrote: post #30
gruez wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. build an algorithm to detect (using open cv?) and adjust eye position so they look correct to the viewer 2. patent it and license it to apple/google/microsoft 3. ??? 4. profit

> build an algorithm > adjust eye position yes, those are the hard parts

[Recent ML work on Gaze Manipulation](http://www.creativeai.net/posts/6fokKr6xuytqsnT9F/deepwarp-p...)

[Online interactive demo](http://sites.skoltech.ru/compvision/projects/deepwarp/)

Re: Google Duo, a simple 1-to-1 video calling app

#58

Post by limeyy »

Ok, just a FaceTime clone. When Apple added it to iOS it seemed redudant initially (because of Skype etc), but now everyone is using it all the time, because it's phone number based: It's a success.

So the real question is, if they wanted to make this, what the hell took them so long?

It really smells like a mistake, and catch-up, almost pitiful at this point.

Re: Google Duo, a simple 1-to-1 video calling app

#59

Post by michelb »

roryisok wrote: post #39
helloworld wrote: post #12

Sounds like Duo has a simple user experience, which is great. But it doesn't solve the eye-contact problem with video calls today. When you look at the person on the screen whom you're talking to, that person sees you looking away, because you're not looking into the camera, which is somewhere on the edge of the screen. So you don't make eye contact with the person you're talking to. And for me, that makes video call…

Can't they just put a camera behind the screen? Been waiting for this for over a decade

apple has a patent on something similar since 2006, http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=...

recently improved upon it: http://appleinsider.com/articles/09/01/08/apple_files_patent...

Wonder why it never made it into a product.

Post reply on HN